Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Every year, millions of people from Iran and Iraq travel to each other's countries, and we also have marriages between Iraqis and Iranians. Many Iranians were born in Iraq, and many Iraqis were born in Iran. This is a kind of special, cordial amicable ties.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.